Male Greater Scaup

The Greater and Lesser Scaups are somewhat hard to distinguish. The greater is about 18" long
and the lesser is 17.5". The Greater Scaup has a greenish cast in the black feathers whereas the
Lesser has a purplish cast. The Greater's head is a little more round. Both varieties are found
in our area (Vancouver, Canada) but the Greater is more common here than the Lesser.

This is a manipulated image. The whole image has been converted to black and white except the
beak, eye and a small patch under the eye. The reduction of the colour brings out the
texture in the feathers - although this is far more noticable in a large print than in the
images made for the web.

The camera recorded the following information in the original image file: